Welcome to the Home Page of
Mike McGurrin

Index

Welcome

Greetings from Vienna, Virginia. Gena and I have been
living here for about 27 years now, and I've been in the Washington area for
over 30 years (hard to believe!). I retired from
Noblis,
a non-profit science, technology, and strategy organization, in January 2017.
I continue to consult on traffic operations and
"Intelligent Transportation Systems" - the application of sensor,
communications, and information processing technologies to improve surface
transportation, including connected and autonomous vehicles and smart cities. More
information on my consulting is available at
www.mcgurrin.com.

Some Favorite Quotes

Technology

"1)
everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal; 2)
anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is
incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of
it; 3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the
natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know
it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be
alright really."

"The notion that standards engender successful industries seems
as likely to me as the aboriginal Cargo Cult of New Guinea (build an airport of
straw & twigs, & the great silver birds will swoop down out of the sky, bringing
Manna from heaven.) I think it's rather the case that successful industries
engender standards after the fact, based on their experiences thus far, in order
to further their success."

"Open systems exercise the entrepreneurial part of our economy and call
into question proprietary systems and broadly mandated monopolies. In an
open system we compete with our imagination, not with a lock and key. The
result is not only a large number of successful companies, but a wide variety
of choice for the consumer and an ever more nimble commercial sector, one
that can change and grow."

Sarnoff's Law - "The value of a broadcast network is proportional to the number of viewers."
David Sarnoff

Metcalfe's Law
- "The value of a system grows as approximately the square of the number of
users of the system." Robert Metcalfe

Reed's Law - "The utility of large networks, particularly
social networks,
scales exponentially with the size of the network." David P. Reed

In 2008, I was
visiting a major state university, and to my dismay, learned that the
transportation engineering graduate students, had, for the most part, never
learned anything about programming or software. And this is a school with
a center specializing in applying advanced communications and information
technology to transportation. In my opinion, anyone that uses technical,
analytic, or simulation software, or who may be responsible for procuring
computer-based systems should have at least some exposure to programming.
It is in this spirit that I pass along this excerpt:

"If you've
never programmed a computer, you should. There's nothing like it in the whole
world. When you program a computer, it does exactly what you tell it to do. It's
like designing a machine -- any machine, like a car, like a faucet, like a
gas-hinge for a door -- using math and instructions. It's awesome in the truest
sense: it can fill you with awe...

Most of us will never build a car. Pretty much none of us will
ever create an aviation system. Design a building. Lay out a city.Those are
complicated machines, those things, and they're off-limits to the likes of you
and me. But a computer is like, ten times more complicated, and it will dance to
any tune you play. You can learn to write simple code in an afternoon. Start
with a language like Python, which was written to give non-programmers an easier
way to make the machine dance to their tune. Even if you only write code for one
day, one afternoon, you have to do it. Computers can control you or they can
lighten your work -- if you want to be in charge of your machines, you have to
learn to write code."

And by the way, if you haven't read
Little Brother do so,
no matter what your age. It's classified as teen fiction, but it's also an
important book. The author
Neil Gaiman
sums it up nicely: "I'd recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I've
read this year, and I'd want to get it into the hands of as many smart 13 year
olds, male and female, as I can. Because I think it'll change lives. Because
some kids, maybe just a few, won't be the same after they've read it. Maybe
they'll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it'll just be the first
book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they'll want to argue
about it and disagree with it. Maybe they'll want to open their computer and see
what's in there. I don't know. It made me want to be 13 again right now and
reading it for the first time, and then go out and make the world better or
stranger or odder. It's a wonderful, important book, in a way that renders its
flaws pretty much meaningless."

"There is nothing more
difficult to take in hand, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the
lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has
for enemies all those who have done well under the old order of things, and
lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."

Miscellaneous

"To believe something is to believe that it is true; therefore a reasonable
person believes each of his beliefs to be true; yet experience has taught him to
expect that some of his beliefs, he knows not which, will turn out to be false.
A reasonable person believes, in short, that each of his beliefs is true and
that some of them are false."

"Transportation
networks are the blood and veins of economic development."

Unknown

"The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent;
but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries
of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine
meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."

“Security and privacy are not opposite ends of a seesaw; you don't have to accept less of one to get more of the other. Think of a door lock, a burglar alarm and a tall fence…. The debate isn't security versus privacy. It's liberty versus control.”